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Talk:Protection racket
Suppose you can't afford all 9 points of protection when you reach the temple, what do you do? Do you go on playing as a pacifist for as long as it takes, or do you switch to normal play after buying your first substantial chunk of protection? Ekaterin 15:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC) :If you have a pet, it isn't hard (but is usually time-consuming) to credit-clone and make up the cash you need. With an Archeologist, I have an easy time extorting the general store for all it's worth (no one else will accept my gems), which is usually enough for the +9. If you absolutely can't raise the funds, switch to normal play -- it's dangerous to stay at XL1 so long. Just my two cents. --Mogri 17:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC) I have tried many, many times to do the protection racket as an Archeologist. I have only made it to the priest twice, and both times with XL = 4. I let my pet (or pets) do all the killing possible, but eventually I usually have to level up after having to fight under dire circumstances. At XL = 4 I could only get 1 purchase of protection. After selling gems, the general store shopkeeper has no more money. It seems nearly impossible to do the "steal & sell" with commestibles and candles to make much money without starving. This likely leaves only one store owner with available gold. I have two questions: 1. Besides digging to vaults in the main dungeon (which I do) and killing shopkeepers (I don't), how do you quickly obtain it? Do you extort money from every shopkeeper? 2. How low should your XL level be? Is XL=4 is too high as not enough gold is available in minetown? :Being level 4 means you have to spend at least 1,600 gold per point of protection. In order to get the entire amount, you will need to have 12,800 gold (1,600 gold 8 times). 12,800 might be possible, but it's much harder to get than 3,200 at level 1. --MadDawg2552 04:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC) I just tried this seriously for the first time because I was lvl1 when I found the Gnomish Mines...and made it! I'm an Arc and didn't bother to try and get money, I thought I'd get that from shoplifting with my doggie. It was all going fine for the first two levels of the Mines until I fell into a trap door right into Itzchak's. The way up was quite harsh as I refused to use any other weapon than Elbereth and I had 2 levels to ge through to get back to my pet, including going across a beehive, but whan I finally got to him the way back was fine, I collected some 1000g from a bone file along the way and I was back to the temple in no time. Remember guys: Elbereth! I'll post the link to my ttyrec file from NAO when I'm finished... 82.124.106.37 20:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC) part 1, part 2. You can read them with termplay 82.124.233.111 08:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC) I am an old expert as this game, and have done in tournaments with the most conducts, including pacifist. Their are ways to make protection racket more viable as all classes, which include praying to raise your max hp and going up to lvl 3 before going into the mines. The best bet is to do sokobon first, and then go into the mines. Should i put this in? :: I consider Protection Racket with a healer who has <5 mana to be roughly the same as with other non-healer classes, except that with a healer you do have the opportunity to quaff a couple of potions to get your HP into the 20s and keep more for emergencies. An Arc is a good choice because of the starting pickaxe with which to dig out some vaults, but then again you can go into the mines and let your pet eat gnomes and dwarves until you have one, which won't be that long, then head back upstairs likewise to go digging. I can't say exactly what I've done that has made it easier for me, but over time I've become fairly comfortable with PR. Initially it was abject terror; now it takes either pretty bad luck or serious operator error for me to get killed doing it. Ironically I think the most dangerous place is probably Minetown, because that's usually where a pet gets killed trying to take on one too many watchmen. If you're not a healer, your pet probably will be killed in Minetown by a watch captain, unless you find a magic whistle, so hurry up and get that protection while you can. :: I go all the way down to Minetown as Level 1, or if I don't, I don't bother until I've cobbled up some huge amount of gold elsewhere. :: As an experiment, I just ran PR with a samurai. First one got to Minetown with about 2400 gold cloned/looted from vaults/etc., at level 1, got the protection, and then was blown away by an orc pointblank with a wand of lightning coming around a corner. Oh well. Second try, got to Minetown with about 2000 gold, hacked around till about level 4, cloned enough for a couple more chats. Not a problem really. It's all in keeping the pet in the way, and both of you alive. Joe n bloe 10:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC) Knights good at protection racket? An anonymous user added: :Some classes have a comparatively good chance, such as Knights due to their horse's ability to kill the mines' denizens (and not stop to eat each corpse), their ability to jump, and having lots of starting armor, but even so, it is still difficult. Can't say I see it myself. ;horse's ability to kill the mines' denizens :While it's true that horses can gain one more level, get faster and have an extra 1d2-4 attack, this really is a negligible advantage. If you're regularly so close to death that one more attack from a monster before your pet killed it would have killed you, you're doing it wrong. Also, who's to say another class won't find veggie food and a pony, or the knight's pony won't die or get lost and need replacing with a random dog or kitten? ;not stop to eat corpses :This is more disadvantage than advantage. It forces you to rush before your horse gets hungry and turns on you. Conversely, you can always keep the monsters at bay with Elbereth until your pet finishes eating and a player can always pray to fill his stomach, once his alignment is positive (e.g. kill a suitable 1XP monster - we're not talking pacifist here). ;their ability to jump :This is a slight advantage, but the downside is jumping increases hunger. You're going to need those extra corpses. Also, Elbereth is more important than fast movement for the protection racket. Better from this standpoint are probably Monks, with intrinsic speed; unlike knights they get more chances to dust-engrave Elbereth. ;having lots of starting armor :Only really an advantage up to the point you find your first set of mithril; typically earlier on, in the easier part of the protection racket. Helmets are plentiful and shields relatively common so really only the gloves make any difference at all, and 1AC is not that big an advantage. It's not unusual for me to have negative AC *before* buying protection as a healer on the protection racket (I don't bother with the heal spell even if I have the mana to cast it at level 1). Valkyries are probably better than knights here as their +3 shield is useful at least until they decide to start hitting stuff. In summary, I don't see knights as significantly better than any random class; you could dress up many other classes' starting abilities and equipment similarly. I propose reverting this edit. What do others think? --Rogerb-on-NAO 00:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)